A Charming Noose
by The Legend of Derpy
Summary: After his father's untimely death, Gleason reevaluates his choices.


On Gleason's dresser, there was a jumbled assortment of trash. Photography magazines smothered a real camera, one he hadn't bothered to use in years on account of its outdated technology, under their slouched pages. Bottles of used mascara crusted by tears he'd never admit to shedding laid on their sides, waiting for fingers to dabble with their wands once more during a Monday jog to school. Useless bits of film starring a young boy and an older man taking a like appearance to Gleason himself littered a significant portion of the furniture's top, both holding hands and laughing on some forgotten beach washed away by the rage of recent storms. The duo of son and father made another appearance on a framed photograph close by the film that has been curled by age, the frame itself sixteen by sixteen inches and made from knotty wood. His entire dresser reeked of his dead father.

Draped over the frame was a noose. Tied to the end of the fatal rope, a camera charm.

Gleason fingered the noose gingerly. If his old mom was unfortunate enough to find this, she'd throw a hysterical yelling fit while he just took the heat. Ever since her husband's early death, however, she hadn't touched her son's room with a ten foot pole, instead taking to leaving the house for hours on end - "For groceries", she'd say, even though the house hadn't seen food in weeks and she'd return mysteriously empty handed - and avoiding human contact like the plague, so he was positive that the rope was safe. He took a simple green hand mirror off his drawer and sighed, running a solitary hand through the bush his hair had become. Grooming hadn't been on his mind lately, what with current events. After a few more down years for the company like this, he thought, it was doubtful he'd even have money for luxuries such as hair cuts. It wasn't supposed to end like this. After his parent's company went down the toilet they were supposed to realize slowly that they could make the best of their time in ways not relating to the green stuff, and they could be that happy family again Gleason kept hostage on his dresser, that smiling family on the beach. Dad wasn't supposed to keel over from a heart attack at work that drafty February morning. It wasn't scripted in the young photographer's plans. It was supposed to end like a sitcom, the type his family used to watch when he was small.

He tried not to let his gaze fall on the charm again, not sure as to exactly why he felt light headed upon making contact with its crisp, fake lens and bumpy surface. Gleason was never actually planning on suicide. He had to keep up appearances for his alleged friends, and as a amateur actor he knew it meant living his role on a day to day basis. The rockers did, like any clique, have appearances to maintain. If he hadn't been such an excellent photographer Gleason likely could have found a home in acting.

Gleason was so good of an actor that he could fake being heterosexual with ease.

Maybe he was a little too good.

Forcing himself to study the charm again with a begrudging turn of his head, the coarse material of his band sweatshirt biting his neck in annoyance at the sudden movement, he picked up the length of the rope with both gentle hands of his and started picking at the noose's knot with black fingernails until the gnarl unfurled into a brownish line. The charm swan dived in response in a graceless yet quick tumble off the rope's straight ends, hitting the plywood with a saddening bounce. Luckily, it hadn't broken, and instead resorted to staring upwards at him dejectedly. He gawked in return before bending over and picking the charm up, careful to not let his overgrown nails scratch the surface.  
Faking this jaded personality was taking a toll on him and his mental health. The entire suicide act was total attention whore bullshit, and Gleason had known so from the beginning since joining his goddamn clique. It was some sort of out of reach ritual he didn't want defining him, living in paranoia that it did despite his best efforts. Yet there were times, he had to admit, where hanging from the ceiling didn't sound too bad, and it's why he had tied the charm on the rope in the first place. A reminder, almost, that things wouldn't always be this way. Perhaps a time would come where his mother would get over the fact that her son's facial appearance mirrored that of her late husband's, and talk to him once more, making nights at the dinner table less inconvenient as forks scraped at tasteless meals day after day. And if not, he had photography to define him.

But even that, he knew, carried a slight undertone of untruth. He himself was nothing but an actor without a role, not sure what to do with himself and his multiple personalities. The hair, the makeup, the entire air he carried around him as he advanced through the jungle that was high school, he knew it was all fake. An act meant to draw attention away from the fact that he too was a boy who enjoyed makeup, nail art. He didn't want to be branded as another Carlos Duarte, and thinking those words brought a wave of steady pain to his head. But it felt fantastic, the attention it brought. The whispers of people as he graced the hall with mystery seeping from his body. Freshmen pointing at him like a circus animal, a glare aimed just right at their pack leader sending them off shrieking into the labyrinth of a high school. Even his father's morbid end had become a side attraction of sort, the occasional passerby who felt the need to smile solemnly at him or to pat his back in a sort of teenage comfort brought something new to the table. He absorbed attention like a sponge, and he hated it as he loved it. It was the reasoning behind his fascination in the photo arts: Gleason finally had the chance to hide behind the camera and watch as the world focused not at him, but at the unjudging glance of a lens. Only they reflected the truth, not a body nor a person's words.

Gripping his head and ignoring the shooting burn of nails digging into his head, he moaned speechlessly. What if even his little explanation was bullshit, a way to escape the truth and make excuses? He had lived under a different idenity for so long, he had forgotten himself in the process It didn't help him figure out the puzzle that was his life any better, and for a disgusting, self indulging moment, he mourned for himself. Gleason felt like a ghost in his own body.

Snapping out of his selfish fantasy he realized that he did have something left, he had a person. t as one he felt saw through his act and knew the real him, and for the first time in his life, those traits brought him a surge of excitement rather than sickening embarrassment. At the moment, he nearly felt like living for this man, and the charm was some sort of determent if he ever found himself reaching for the rope.  
Somewhere, deep down, he wished Carlos would help define him one day and bring back his old self.

He glanced at the rope.

One day, but not today. Not words for his suicide, but for Carlos. He hoped these ones didn't lie.


End file.
